Governance and Global Affairs

Centre for Modern Urban Studies

The Centre for Modern Urban Studies (MUS) is a multidisciplinary academic institute conducting research into changes in modern-day large cities. These changes in socio-cultural, economic, legal and technological areas are interconnected in a complex manner.

It is hardly possible to get a grasp on issues of urban development such as migration, social cohesion, urban restructuring, socio-economic differences, and the development of a knowledge economy and internationalisation from a single discipline. These themes require a comprehensive approach. The Centre for Modern Urban Studies meets this demand, by developing an academic knowledge centre at Leiden University Campus The Hague which studies The Hague developments, and recently also developments in other Dutch cities, from a comparative perspective.

The MUS is currently participating in a research project on Social mobility; individuals, groups and neighbourhoods. Read more on the project website.

The MUS aims to become a multidisciplinary institute, where scholars from Leiden University work together with other academic partners in the fields of research and education on urban developments. Furthermore MUS wishes to provide practical knowledge to local partners, both the The Hague municipality and other public institutions, such as housing cooperations, care and welfare organisations, but also archives, education institutions and museums.

The managing director of the centre is professor Wim Willems. Research is conducted by a team of people with different scientific backgrounds (although often in social-economic history) and in different stages of their career (as PhD student, postdoctoral fellow, guest researcher or professor). Some of the researchers are also working at the Leiden University Institute for History in Leiden.